Until I See Your Face Again
by whowhatsitwhich
Summary: I cried Never gonna hold the hand of another guy Too young for him they told her Waitin' for the love of a travelin' soldier Our love will never end Waitin' for the soldier to come back again Never more to be alone when the letter says A soldier's coming home Dixie Chicks - Travelin' Soldier


" _I don't know what they are called, the spaces between seconds– but I think of you always in those intervals." ― Salvador Plascencia_

His army greens were clean and neat although ill-fitting. They did not do him justice. She couldn't help but notice him when he sidled in and sat at the counter, propping his elbows up on the counter. Untidy locks of sun-kissed brown fell over his forehead, almost obscuring those too blue eyes. They latched on to the menu board like a limpet on a rock.

Undeterred, Carol wandered over and plunked a coffee cup down before him, proffering the fresh made pot. "Coffee?" She chirped as she marshalled her best grin. A short nod was all she got for a response so she filled his cup and then push the sugar bowl closer. "There's strawberry pie made just this morning. Can I get you some of that?"

His cheeks knotted and his face blistered with a sudden surge of heat. The heavy cup rattled against the saucer as his fingers tightened around it. "I…uh…no," he stammered. "No thanks." Those eyes darted up and then away when they collided with hers.

"Well alright then." Carol nodded as she turned away. "Let me know if you need anything else." She'd taken all of two steps before his slow, solemn voice stopped her cold.

"Gotta few hours before my bus leaves," he mumbled behind his cup. "Could you sit and talk for a while? Ain't got no family or nobody to see me off. I mean, if you've got the time."

He looked so alone sitting there, hunched over his cup, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. She glanced at the clock and then made her way back to where he sat. "I get off in an hour and I know where we can go. Hang on. I'll go get you a piece of that pie."

They walked to the pier, shoulders occasionally brushing as they made their slow way down the worn boards. She surprised him by sitting down right at the edge and letting her legs dangle over the side. Leaning back on her hands, she tilted her face to the sky and closed her eyes, her dark red curls looking like windswept flame as the wind took them over.

"What happened to your family?" She asked idly.

He sank down on his haunches, elbows resting on his knees as he alternated between staring at her and the water. "Mom died when I was eight and my old man took off a few years later. Mostly, it was just me and my brother, Merle. He was the toughest son of a bitch I even knew, my brother."

"So he's gone too? I'm sorry."

"Joined up when he was eighteen. It was that or do time. He lost his hand and got sent home a few years later." He shook his head and then chewed on his thumbnail, lost in thought. "It went to shit from there. He got mixed up with a bad crowd, things happened, and my brother was dead." He pretended not to notice her dismayed expression. "I bunked on a few couches for a while, got bounced around the whole foster home scene until I aged out. I was a nobody, a nothing , just a redneck piece of shit who was gonna end up dealing or dead. Instead, I enlisted. I'm going to California and then probably overseas." A half-hearted chuckle escaped him. "Hell, I ain't never been out of Georgia."

"I went to stay with my mom's family in Kentucky a few years ago," Carol announced. "And me and some friends went to Nashville for a weekend senior year." Her heart skipped a beat when he gave her a sideways smile. "You'll have to write and tell me all about California."

"Won't that piss your boyfriend off, getting letters from some guy you just met."

Carol's mind wandered briefly to those two dates with Ed Peletier. He'd been captain of the football team and then joined his father at the family dealership after graduation. The Peletiers were well respected in their small town and Ed considered quite a catch. Carol tried to mirror her mother's enthusiasm for the attention Ed gave her but it was no use. There was something about him that left her cold. He'd never been anything but a gentleman but there was a darkness there that seemed to be lying in wait, just waiting for the right time to pounce.

"There's nobody," she assured him. "So you have no excuses for not writing to me." She pulled a blank order pad out of her pocket and scrawled her address on the top sheet. Then she tore it off and handed it over, blushing when their fingers touched. "Please. I'd really like it if you would."

His sun bright smile made her stomach swoop and her heart bound in her chest when she saw it. Carol couldn't stop herself from leaning in close and cupping his cheek, her thumb tracing the edge of that smile.

Their lips met like shadows touching, soft and light and fleeting. He tasted like cigarettes and coffee and strawberry pie. She smelled like sunshine and wildflowers. She was a feather in his arms, fragile and delicate and deceptively strong. His hair was silk as she sifted her fingers through the longish strands at his nape. Those would be gone soon, shortly after he got to the base. She mourned them just as she regretted that they hadn't met sooner.

"Promise me," she mumbled between kisses. "Promise me that you'll stay safe. That you'll write to me so I know you're okay. Please?"

He didn't answer her until they were headed back into town. Hands braided together, walking in lockstep across the parking lot to the diner where he'd left his bags behind the counter. He paused just outside the door and drew her in, dropping one last kiss on her willing mouth before whispering, "I've got nine lives, Carol, so don't worry about me, alright?"

"You'll write?"

"Course I will. I said I would, didn't I?"

She stayed until he got on the bus and waved until it disappeared from view, holding back her tears until the rooster tail of dust in its wake dissipated.

The letters came from a camp in California at first. Two a week and then two weeks in between before another would arrive. The intervals became longer when he went overseas but every one of them had story and a little something extra inside. The first held a beautifully pattered scarf the soft, wavering blue of her eyes; the second, a charm on a dainty silver chain.

Her mother sniffed in disapproval when she saw the wrinkled packages. Words had long since dried up between them since Carol had bid Ed Peletier a not so fond farewell.

"You're too young to be pinning your hopes on a boy you barely know," Anne Grayson announced in those icy, cool tones that Carol despised. "You don't love him and he doesn't love you, Carol. It's foolish. You know that."

"I know what I feel, Mother."

"You're waiting on a maybe, an illusion. We live in the real world and it's time for you to realize that. Let it be what it is and this boy be who he is…a temporary thing and a stranger with whom you spent a pleasant afternoon."

Carol leaped to her feet and stormed toward the door. "You don't understand and you'll never understand. It's not temporary and he's not a stranger. He's mine and I am his and one day he'll be back."

And then the letters stopped.

Weeks and then months went by and still nothing.

She cried into her pillow night after night, her heart aching beneath her breast as she considered why. Her mother stayed silent, following her daughter's frail form as she ghosted through the house. Finally, she opened her arms and smoothed the tousled curls as the girl sobbed into her neck. "I know," she whispered. "I know it hurts, sweetheart. You go ahead and cry if that's what you need to do. That pain you're feeling, it doesn't go away. You just make room for it."

Six months later, it came. The envelope was ragged and worn, the writing dull and blurred with the miles it had travelled. Her mother's grey eyes were heavy with worry when she handed it over but she smiled and said she was going to go make some tea.

Carol slid a nail under the flap and then quickly tore it open. Her hands shook as she pulled out the single sheet inside and unfolded it. A tangled wire in the shape of a circle fell into her lap as she smoothed out the paper. Confused, she picked it up and examined it before reading what he'd wrote in his godawful chicken scratch scrawl.

 _I'm sorry. We was out on a run and got caught out. It was bad, Carol, so bad._  
 _All I could think of was that promise I made to you when we sat on the pier that day. There was no way that I was gonna break that promise._

 _I'm coming home and God willing, you'll be there when I get off the bus. I know there's a chance you didn't wait and I won't blame you if you didn't. It's a lot to ask. I've been gone a long time._

 _But if you did, then maybe you'll let me ask you one more thing. I've got a ring._  
 _It's yours if you want it, just like me._  
 _The bread tie is a place holder, silly I know._  
 _Wear it until I can get there to put the real one on your finger._  
 _Do that for me. I'll see you soon._

 _Love, Daryl_

Laughing through her tears, she picked up the lopsided circle and reverently slid it on her finger.


End file.
